6 ms·

US Passport Power Falls to Historic Low

139 points by saubeidl 1y ago

seizethecheese 1y ago
This is a silly metric, it weights every country the same. Any other weight would work better (population, GDP, etc)
- hapidjus 1y ago
  Do you usually take those into account when planing trips?
  - boltzmann_ 1y ago
    yes?
    - Balinares 1y ago
      "I'll go to India for my vacation! Sure, the beaches aren't anything like the Caribbeans, but you gotta realize: it's got WAY more people."
      - decimalenough 1y ago
        The beaches in the Andamans (near Thailand) and Lakshadweep (geologically part of the Maldives) can hold their own against any Caribbean beach. https://www.eternalandamans.com/havelock-island/radhanagar-beach https://www.eternalandamans.com/havelock-island/radhanagar-b... https://www.gokitetours.com/top-beaches-in-lakshadweep-you-must-visit-for-a-dreamy-escape/ https://www.gokitetours.com/top-beaches-in-lakshadweep-you-m...
      - cyberax 1y ago
        India is a great place for a vacation, if you want to visit the historical sites and not just vegetate on a beach.
- pinkmuffinere 1y ago
  Why is he being downvoted??? He’s right. Do you care more about China or Barbados? Clearly some countries are much more important than others, and it is fairly easy to make a decent ranking of importance (even if the exact ranking will vary from person to person)
  - CaptainOfCoit 1y ago
    > Clearly some countries are much more important than others, and it is fairly easy to make a decent ranking of importance "Important" in this way? At least by the current methodology, it's fairly bias-free, which if you add "Countries that are more important than others weight more" to the mix you cannot call it bias-free anymore.
    - pinkmuffinere 1y ago
      Counting each country equally is itself a bias -- it slides the weighting 100% towards international recognition of a country. As a result, Somalia and Morocco are weighted equally, which is obviously incorrect; nobody is upset if they can't go to Somalia. A common-sense weighting would be imperfect, but almost certainly better than an equal weighting on each county. "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good". edit: it _SHOULD NOT MATTER_, but I grew up in Turkey, am half Persian, and am very liberal. If that matters to you, please think good and hard about what kind of person you have become.
    - oceansky 1y ago
      It's close, but the existence or not of some countries is sometimes disputed.
  - gtirloni 1y ago
    > Do you care more about China or Barbados? What if I do? Is this index only for US citizens to make use of?
  - cyberax 1y ago
    China absolutely is interesting to a lot of people. Both from a business perspective and for tourism. It's a country with several thousand years of history, after all.
- blipvert 1y ago
  Doesn’t really matter as it is in relation to what it used to good for.
  - palmotea 1y ago
    > Doesn’t really matter as it is in relation to what it used to good for. If you read the actual article, it seems a US passport is about as good as it always was. It seems like much of the change is various countries expanding visa free travel, just not to Americans. Before when I went to China or Vietnam, I had to get a visa. Now with this change in ranking...I still have to get a visa.
- spelk 1y ago
  I wanted to do an analysis (but lacked a quality dataset or time/willingness to prepare one) that coded mobility differently. First off, I'd weight countries that grant visa-free access to relatively few other countries (e.g., China, USA, ECOWAS) more than countries that are comparatively more lenient (e.g. countries like Samoa, Tuvalu that grant visa-free access to everyone). Secondly, I'd additionally weight for residency mobility - the ability to work and live in another country with few conditions (e.g. Schengen area, Common Travel Area, Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement, MERCOSUR, ECOWAS, CARICOM, Freedom of movement in the Gulf States). Countries like Canada, Japan and Singapore may score well on paper for travel mobility, but are definitely weaker than EU passports that allow you to migrate to where jobs are and improve your own economic outcomes.
- angio 1y ago
  The top list would be all EU countries since not only they can travel almost anywhere, but they have the right to live and work in 20+ other rich countries.
- nostrademons 1y ago
  Really you want to weight by tourism desirability. The Maldives, Jamaica, Croatia, Iceland, Fiji should rate more highly than India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria despite having a tiny fraction of the population.
- OneMorePerson 1y ago
  At the risk of making it more complicated than it's worth, you really need multiple indexes. Population and GDP are possible metrics, but they still don't capture everything. If we take universities as an example there's an absolute rank, but then there's also a rank within sub-colleges to tell us that while Harvard is a high ranking university, it's comparatively much more renowned for law than for computer science.
dsrtslnd23 1y ago
The score seems to be based on the number of countries you can enter without a visa. This is pretty meaningless as countries like St. Kitts and Nevis (Caribbean, population 47,000) and China are treated as the same.
- cm2187 1y ago
  Also I fail to see the distinction between an ESTA/ETIAS and a visa. If I need to apply ahead of travelling, and pay a fee, and this may be denied, how is that not a visa?
  - pacbard 1y ago
    Because applying for a visa takes money, time, and a visit to the embassy. ESTA/ETIAS gets automatically approved within a few minutes of paying for the fee (I guess this is true for 99.999% of applicants). Very few countries allow people to just show up and cross the border. US citizens had that privilege in a lot of places, but it looks like it’s changing now.
    - sib 1y ago
      Not true - there are plenty of countries that have e-visa (online application).
    - ghaff 1y ago
      I have never visited an embassy to get a visa--though I did cancel a couple of business trips when it became too much of an effort because of timing relative to other trips. I've travelled to a bunch of countries where I could just go through immigration with a US passport or maybe pay for a visa on arrival.
  - daveoc64 1y ago
    For one, having a visa comes with a high chance of being admitted to the country (although never 100%). That is not true of schemes like ESTA or ETIAS.
n0um3n4 1y ago
huh... I thought the most powerful passport was the German.
- Balinares 1y ago
  Irish, maybe? It's EU, which opens a lot of doors, plus you also get UK for free.
  - netsharc 1y ago
    It's a bit of a dumb ranking. Being able to live in the UK visa-free is probably more "valuable" than being able to enter Trinidad & Tobago, and all the top passports differ by 1 or 2 countries that are on that level.
- bojan 1y ago
  It changes often. Right now it's Singapore.
jorblumesea 1y ago
It's going to get worse, I'd imagine, as more Americans double down on 2nd citizenship, permanent residencies. As the US becomes more unstable, the risk of overstaying is going to increase. Countries will start yanking visa free entry as the US falls apart.
- drstewart 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - jorblumesea 1y ago
    How is this relevant? the US falling into autocratic despotism and international isolation is the issue here.
  - robotresearcher 1y ago
    The linked article says crime is still lower in Canada than the US. It’s one of the safest and richest places in the world. It’s on the brink of collapse like Portland is a burning war zone, ie. really not.
- bruceb 1y ago
  "..as the US falls apart." If you actually believe this, you are welcome to short American stocks. See how that works out.
  - hypeatei 1y ago
    The stock market isn't representative of 1) how the economy is doing and 2) how your civil rights are doing. Would you say the surveillance state we've lived under since Bush is fine because the stock market is at an all time high? Similarly for the global inflation under COVID: is it fine since stocks went up?
    - bruceb 1y ago
      If you think the country is falling apart and people are going to flee, then yes stock market would fall if those things did actually happen.
akkartik 1y ago
What change in visa policies have driven the change in rank? Have any countries switched on visa requirements for US passports? Or are other countries switching off visa requirements? Edit: Thanks to the responses. My bad for missing that in the article.
- decimalenough 1y ago
  From the article: > The loss of visa-free access to Brazil in April due to a lack of reciprocity, and the US being left out of China’s rapidly expanding visa-free list, marked the start of its downward slide. This was followed by adjustments from Papua New Guinea and Myanmar, which further eroded the US score while boosting other passports. Most recently, Somalia’s launch of a new eVisa system and Vietnam’s decision to exclude the US from its latest visa-free additions delivered the final blow, pushing it out of the Top 10.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    >US being left out of China’s rapidly expanding visa-free list Really? My visa is probably expired now but I remember my Chinese visa being sort of a headache to deal with 10 years back from the US. Certainly a couple different visas to there weren't "visa-free."
    - Archonical 1y ago
      What part are you disagreeing with? It says the US is being left out of China's expanding visa-free program, not that 10 years ago the USA was on the visa-free list for China
      - ghaff 1y ago
        The US was not on a visa-free list for China 10 years ago the last time I applied (at least for a business event). But maybe it isn't on some expanding visa-free list which is something I really haven't paid attention to.
wand3r 1y ago
Leaving aside the ranking this article itself employs, it does seem to track. I will arbitrarily and qualitatively try and touch on some perceived benefits of a US passport / citizenship that seem to be falling: - Visaless entry - Ability to skip lines or fast track through immigration - Embassy services - Marriage prospect: Often US citizens were desirable or at least neutral partners for international relationships. Foreign nationals considered the option of relocating to America favorably. A partner may not want to relocate to the US now, or want a relationship with an American. - General disapproval of Americans abroad in some countries - Likelihood the government would intervene on your behalf. Brittney Griner / Travis King. The Trump government does not seem as capable at governing. The Democrats seem to be be better at governing and favor bureaucracy more, whether this is true or perceived, I will not claim to know. The government itself is not funded/shut down currently which may impact embassies and clerical services. There does seem to be a general dislike of America and frustration building in many populations and presumably governments. The standing of America has greatly fallen in the world. While hostilities seem to be rising, America's ability to project soft and real power seem to be falling. This can impact some of the points above. I am sure there are other points I have missed and factors I have overlooked. I would say that the general perception of the "strength" of a passport has fallen.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
palmotea 1y ago
> Prof. Peter J. Spiro of Temple University Law School in Philadelphia says while US citizenship remains a valuable status, it’s no longer good enough as a standalone. “In coming years, more Americans will be acquiring additional citizenships in whatever way they can. Multiple citizenship is being normalized in American society. While it may be a bit of an exaggeration, as one social media poster recently put it, “dual citizenship is the new American dream”. What nonsense is this? It's really frickin' hard for a normal person to acquire additional citizenships, and I think the easy "citizenship by decent" options that some Americans had access to are closing. There's no way the requisite long foreign residencies is becoming "normalized" in American society. Maybe Prof. Peter J. Spiro only hangs out with very rich people who can buy some citizenships through investment, but if he does he should refrain on commenting on what's "normalized" because he needs to touch grass.
- decimalenough 1y ago
  Normalized != normal. There used to be a bit of a taboo against having multiple citizenships. Now somebody like Travis Kalanick of Uber fame can pick up Saudi (!) citizenship and nobody bats an eye.
  - palmotea 1y ago
    > Now somebody like Travis Kalanick of Uber fame can pick up Saudi (!) citizenship and nobody bats an eye. Why the heck would you want one of those as a foreigner? You'd lose consular access if you ever ran afoul of the government there.
    - kragen 1y ago
      I don't know Travis, and I don't want Saudi "citizenship" (a rather dubious term when applied to a polity that is neither a city nor a republic), but I can think of some possible reasons: • Going places that have visa-free travel for Saudis but not for US citizens. • Evading other forms of discrimination against US citizens, for example, difficulty in opening Swiss bank accounts. • Consular help from the Saudi consulate in third countries that are neither the US nor Saudi Arabia. Right now it's Saudi embassies rather than US embassies that murder journalists who criticize the head of state, but that could reverse within Travis's lifetime. • Owning Saudi land and businesses. Many countries have restrictions on land ownership by non-citizens, and Saudi Arabia (one of the world's richest countries in solar resources) is one of them, although it isn't completely prohibited in all cases. Similarly for starting businesses. • Residency options in third countries. Even today, there are probably countries where Saudi citizens can live more easily than US citizens; if I had to guess, I'd guess Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco. Morocco is famous, among other things, for being where Roland Barthes lived in order to have sex with a lot of young boys. I wouldn't venture to suggest that Travis is looking for that, but all three countries also have vast solar resources. • Living in Saudi Arabia itself has its appeals. The Line project is not someplace I'd want to live, even if a significant fraction of it does get built (Arcosanti is more my speed) but it would at least be interesting to see.
CaptainOfCoit 1y ago
> the Henley Passport Index [...] includes 199 different passports and 227 different travel destinations How come there are more destinations than passports?
- robert-boehnke 1y ago
  Some parts of countries have different travel restrictions than others, for example, Greenland is not part of Schengen.
- CollinEMac 1y ago
  Puerto Rico, for example, counts as a destination but Puerto Ricans have US passports.
- duskwuff 1y ago
  The destinations include some territories like Puerto Rico which aren't passport issuers, but which have visa requirements which may differ from their parent country. In practice, this means the index assigns more weight to passports accepted by nations with many island territories - like the United States.
- ccppurcell 1y ago
  Some destinations don't have passports. But all passport issuing places are in principle visitable.
  - eltondegeneres 1y ago
    This is an example of a passport issued by a recognized sovereign entity without any associated territory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Malta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Ma...
- ajsnigrutin 1y ago
  Just guessing, but could be some colonies with some special travel rules. Eg. some islands somewhere in the middle of nowhere are technically part of eg. France, people living there have french passports, but schengen visas might not be valid to travel there.
bdbdkdksk 1y ago
Given the recent changes to American policy I know people with American passports who are worried they can't even go back into the United States.
- JohnFen 1y ago
  I do as well.
- guerrilla 1y ago
  Ever since 9/11 it's been harder for non-whites. That was long before any of this. I won't even bother now. It's not worth my freedom. I was harassed and detained every single time I went back. Always something different, never anything to actually do with who I actually am or anything I actually did or didn't do.
  - carabiner 1y ago
    It's been harder for people of middle eastern descent but that's about it. I'm nonwhite and have flown a lot and never had any issues. My friend is arab, hipster girl born in LA, and she always gets selected for screening.
    - dijit 1y ago
      Ok, so.. I don't know how to say this without sounding insensitive, but I'm a pretty traditional looking (albeit perhaps short) British, blue-eyed, white guy. I have seriously never had a positive interaction with the US border force. Wether it's the TSA or another associated organisation (since I've been pestered by people who are not TSA). I've been detained, questioned, randomly selected, given contradictory rules by different people, had things randomly confiscated and even been insulted. I'm not confrontational, and I don't believe I stand out. I have had exactly ONE positive interaction (in 2011) whereby I had accidentally travelled with a pocket knife in my checked luggage and due to the fact I was not allowed to check my luggage on the return journey (due to the train being delayed going into Newark; seriously, I understand why Americans distrust public transport) - I told the TSA agent about it and he was kind regarding it, offering condolences, but obviously destroying the knife. I'm not sure if I'm on some kind of easing program to disincentivise me in particular from visiting the US, but I could easily see that if I was anything other than what I am in terms of race/religion/looks/citizenship: that I would presume that this was the reason. And, for context, I've been to the US on average twice per year in the last 15 years, so this is my experience from around 30 trips, and 60-ish interactions with the international air apparatus. It's a pretty decent country once I'm in though, though I wouldn't want to live there. EDIT: I'm not sure why the parent is being downvoted, his anecdote is the same as mine.
hypeatei 1y ago
Is this really surprising given the trade wars the U.S. has started with every country in the world, threats of invasion against allies, and the general lack of qualifications that current U.S. cabinet members have like Hegseth and RFK?
- adventured 1y ago
  It has little to do with the trade wars or threats of invasion by Trump. It pertains to a small number of countries that are agitated by lack of reciprocity; and then there's China. China being a nation that is directly supporting Russia's war against Ukraine. The same Russia that is very clearly plotting to attack NATO. Aka the China that the US is fighting a proxy war against in Ukraine. The same China that the US is actively preparing to go to war with over Taiwan if necessary. What exactly am I to expect from that situation?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - kragen 1y ago
    Generally all countries are "agitated by" lacks of reciprocity; what's changed is that now they're no longer intimidated by the US. Your analysis of the Ukraine war makes no sense.
- TitaRusell 1y ago
  Remember when US vice president officially endorsed AfD? I do.
worik 1y ago
Chickens are slowly coming home to roost. The USA could well be heading for autarky. For the sake of USAians I hope not, for the rest of the world it would be good for us, in the way a heart attack can be good for your health.
- drstewart 1y ago
  Yes, the chickens are coming home because checks notes Papua New Guinea and Myanmar now require visas. I think the US will survive despite that.
  - Herring 1y ago
    Reminds me of a speech by Putin (he would know) >"Confident of their unlimited power, empires create unnecessary problems for themselves until they can no longer cope with them ... And the United States is now walking the Soviet Union's path, and its gait is confident and steady." filibuster, gerrymandering, fptp, electoral college, supreme court, electric cars, J6, climate issues, Russia, aging congressmen, inequality, inflation ... each individually is (probably) solvable, but they just keep piling up like tetris.
regnull 1y ago
For the full context, it looks like Henley & Partners is providing services like obtaining second citizenship, so it's in their best interest to highlight the US passport "decline". Further down they say "Americans Lead Global Rush for Second Citizenships", which just happens to be the thing they are selling.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  Henley's index ranks America 12th, with 180 visa-free destinations [1]. The Global Passport Power Rank 2025 ranks America 9th, with 168...MS [2]. Maybe they count destinations differently? [1] https://www.henleyglobal.com/passport-index https://www.henleyglobal.com/passport-index [2] https://www.passportindex.org/byRank.php https://www.passportindex.org/byRank.php
  - riffraff 1y ago
    they do, you can see "American Samoa", "Bonaire; St. Eustatius and Saba", "French West Indies" etc in Henley's rank, for example.
  - lawlessone 1y ago
    Interesting. Not the exact same but most of countries i've checked in both come out near the same spot.
  - yencabulator 1y ago
    Not 9th. Of rank 9. There's 40 countries ranking higher than USA there.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
regnull 1y ago
I wish there was an index where not all countries are weighted equally, but according to their desirability. Multiply each country by some factor which is defined by how many people would list it as their desirable destination. The index where France and Tuvalu are both counted equally makes no sense to me, with all due respect to the latter.
- ano-ther 1y ago
  It really depends what you desire. For some it's the savoir vivre, for others it may be the lack of an extradition treaty, or the taxes.
  - regnull 1y ago
    While the desire itself is subjective, the question "how many people would like to visit the country X out of a million" is objective.
    - qsera 1y ago
      > out of a million The answer could change depending on how you select the million people you are asking this question to.
- throw57396 1y ago
  “When a metric ceases to match a target, invent a new measure.” with apologies to Goodhart.
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    I mean, a major reason the US fell in the ranks is because Brazil has stopped giving the US, Canada, and Australia visa-free access, Vietnam didn't include the US in the list of countries it chose to extend visa-free access to, Venezuela has extended visa-free access to a number of EU and EFTA members, and Papua New Guinea extended visa-free access to a number of nations recently. Also, the UK has begun enforcing the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) on all countries excluding Ireland, which means the UK is no longer visa free. The UK's ranking fell for similar reasons as well. If not having visa-free access to PNG or Venezuela is a metric, it's not a fairly relevant metric, or at least a very lossy metric.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
kylehotchkiss 1y ago
Do these claims account for the fact that if a US citizen applies for a visa to most places, they'll probably get one, as opposed to many developing country passports, where if you apply for a visa, you probably won't?
tamimio 1y ago
This isn’t even the full story, because a lot of Americans when they travel abroad they pretend they are Canadians. https://m.youtube.com/shorts/mJ6L9VFJP4w https://m.youtube.com/shorts/mJ6L9VFJP4w

139 points by saubeidl 1y ago

seizethecheese 1y ago

This is a silly metric, it weights every country the same. Any other weight would work better (population, GDP, etc)

hapidjus 1y ago
Do you usually take those into account when planing trips?
- boltzmann_ 1y ago
  yes?
  - Balinares 1y ago
    "I'll go to India for my vacation! Sure, the beaches aren't anything like the Caribbeans, but you gotta realize: it's got WAY more people."
    - decimalenough 1y ago
      The beaches in the Andamans (near Thailand) and Lakshadweep (geologically part of the Maldives) can hold their own against any Caribbean beach. https://www.eternalandamans.com/havelock-island/radhanagar-beach https://www.eternalandamans.com/havelock-island/radhanagar-b... https://www.gokitetours.com/top-beaches-in-lakshadweep-you-must-visit-for-a-dreamy-escape/ https://www.gokitetours.com/top-beaches-in-lakshadweep-you-m...
    - cyberax 1y ago
      India is a great place for a vacation, if you want to visit the historical sites and not just vegetate on a beach.
pinkmuffinere 1y ago
Why is he being downvoted??? He’s right. Do you care more about China or Barbados? Clearly some countries are much more important than others, and it is fairly easy to make a decent ranking of importance (even if the exact ranking will vary from person to person)
- CaptainOfCoit 1y ago
  > Clearly some countries are much more important than others, and it is fairly easy to make a decent ranking of importance "Important" in this way? At least by the current methodology, it's fairly bias-free, which if you add "Countries that are more important than others weight more" to the mix you cannot call it bias-free anymore.
  - pinkmuffinere 1y ago
    Counting each country equally is itself a bias -- it slides the weighting 100% towards international recognition of a country. As a result, Somalia and Morocco are weighted equally, which is obviously incorrect; nobody is upset if they can't go to Somalia. A common-sense weighting would be imperfect, but almost certainly better than an equal weighting on each county. "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good". edit: it _SHOULD NOT MATTER_, but I grew up in Turkey, am half Persian, and am very liberal. If that matters to you, please think good and hard about what kind of person you have become.
  - oceansky 1y ago
    It's close, but the existence or not of some countries is sometimes disputed.
- gtirloni 1y ago
  > Do you care more about China or Barbados? What if I do? Is this index only for US citizens to make use of?
- cyberax 1y ago
  China absolutely is interesting to a lot of people. Both from a business perspective and for tourism. It's a country with several thousand years of history, after all.
blipvert 1y ago
Doesn’t really matter as it is in relation to what it used to good for.
- palmotea 1y ago
  > Doesn’t really matter as it is in relation to what it used to good for. If you read the actual article, it seems a US passport is about as good as it always was. It seems like much of the change is various countries expanding visa free travel, just not to Americans. Before when I went to China or Vietnam, I had to get a visa. Now with this change in ranking...I still have to get a visa.
spelk 1y ago
I wanted to do an analysis (but lacked a quality dataset or time/willingness to prepare one) that coded mobility differently. First off, I'd weight countries that grant visa-free access to relatively few other countries (e.g., China, USA, ECOWAS) more than countries that are comparatively more lenient (e.g. countries like Samoa, Tuvalu that grant visa-free access to everyone). Secondly, I'd additionally weight for residency mobility - the ability to work and live in another country with few conditions (e.g. Schengen area, Common Travel Area, Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement, MERCOSUR, ECOWAS, CARICOM, Freedom of movement in the Gulf States). Countries like Canada, Japan and Singapore may score well on paper for travel mobility, but are definitely weaker than EU passports that allow you to migrate to where jobs are and improve your own economic outcomes.
angio 1y ago
The top list would be all EU countries since not only they can travel almost anywhere, but they have the right to live and work in 20+ other rich countries.
nostrademons 1y ago
Really you want to weight by tourism desirability. The Maldives, Jamaica, Croatia, Iceland, Fiji should rate more highly than India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria despite having a tiny fraction of the population.
OneMorePerson 1y ago
At the risk of making it more complicated than it's worth, you really need multiple indexes. Population and GDP are possible metrics, but they still don't capture everything. If we take universities as an example there's an absolute rank, but then there's also a rank within sub-colleges to tell us that while Harvard is a high ranking university, it's comparatively much more renowned for law than for computer science.

dsrtslnd23 1y ago

The score seems to be based on the number of countries you can enter without a visa. This is pretty meaningless as countries like St. Kitts and Nevis (Caribbean, population 47,000) and China are treated as the same.

cm2187 1y ago
Also I fail to see the distinction between an ESTA/ETIAS and a visa. If I need to apply ahead of travelling, and pay a fee, and this may be denied, how is that not a visa?
- pacbard 1y ago
  Because applying for a visa takes money, time, and a visit to the embassy. ESTA/ETIAS gets automatically approved within a few minutes of paying for the fee (I guess this is true for 99.999% of applicants). Very few countries allow people to just show up and cross the border. US citizens had that privilege in a lot of places, but it looks like it’s changing now.
  - sib 1y ago
    Not true - there are plenty of countries that have e-visa (online application).
  - ghaff 1y ago
    I have never visited an embassy to get a visa--though I did cancel a couple of business trips when it became too much of an effort because of timing relative to other trips. I've travelled to a bunch of countries where I could just go through immigration with a US passport or maybe pay for a visa on arrival.
- daveoc64 1y ago
  For one, having a visa comes with a high chance of being admitted to the country (although never 100%). That is not true of schemes like ESTA or ETIAS.

n0um3n4 1y ago

huh... I thought the most powerful passport was the German.

Balinares 1y ago
Irish, maybe? It's EU, which opens a lot of doors, plus you also get UK for free.
- netsharc 1y ago
  It's a bit of a dumb ranking. Being able to live in the UK visa-free is probably more "valuable" than being able to enter Trinidad & Tobago, and all the top passports differ by 1 or 2 countries that are on that level.
bojan 1y ago
It changes often. Right now it's Singapore.

jorblumesea 1y ago

It's going to get worse, I'd imagine, as more Americans double down on 2nd citizenship, permanent residencies. As the US becomes more unstable, the risk of overstaying is going to increase. Countries will start yanking visa free entry as the US falls apart.

drstewart 1y ago
[flagged]
- jorblumesea 1y ago
  How is this relevant? the US falling into autocratic despotism and international isolation is the issue here.
- robotresearcher 1y ago
  The linked article says crime is still lower in Canada than the US. It’s one of the safest and richest places in the world. It’s on the brink of collapse like Portland is a burning war zone, ie. really not.
bruceb 1y ago
"..as the US falls apart." If you actually believe this, you are welcome to short American stocks. See how that works out.
- hypeatei 1y ago
  The stock market isn't representative of 1) how the economy is doing and 2) how your civil rights are doing. Would you say the surveillance state we've lived under since Bush is fine because the stock market is at an all time high? Similarly for the global inflation under COVID: is it fine since stocks went up?
  - bruceb 1y ago
    If you think the country is falling apart and people are going to flee, then yes stock market would fall if those things did actually happen.

akkartik 1y ago

What change in visa policies have driven the change in rank? Have any countries switched on visa requirements for US passports? Or are other countries switching off visa requirements? Edit: Thanks to the responses. My bad for missing that in the article.

decimalenough 1y ago
From the article: > The loss of visa-free access to Brazil in April due to a lack of reciprocity, and the US being left out of China’s rapidly expanding visa-free list, marked the start of its downward slide. This was followed by adjustments from Papua New Guinea and Myanmar, which further eroded the US score while boosting other passports. Most recently, Somalia’s launch of a new eVisa system and Vietnam’s decision to exclude the US from its latest visa-free additions delivered the final blow, pushing it out of the Top 10.
- ghaff 1y ago
  >US being left out of China’s rapidly expanding visa-free list Really? My visa is probably expired now but I remember my Chinese visa being sort of a headache to deal with 10 years back from the US. Certainly a couple different visas to there weren't "visa-free."
  - Archonical 1y ago
    What part are you disagreeing with? It says the US is being left out of China's expanding visa-free program, not that 10 years ago the USA was on the visa-free list for China
    - ghaff 1y ago
      The US was not on a visa-free list for China 10 years ago the last time I applied (at least for a business event). But maybe it isn't on some expanding visa-free list which is something I really haven't paid attention to.

wand3r 1y ago

Leaving aside the ranking this article itself employs, it does seem to track. I will arbitrarily and qualitatively try and touch on some perceived benefits of a US passport / citizenship that seem to be falling: - Visaless entry - Ability to skip lines or fast track through immigration - Embassy services - Marriage prospect: Often US citizens were desirable or at least neutral partners for international relationships. Foreign nationals considered the option of relocating to America favorably. A partner may not want to relocate to the US now, or want a relationship with an American. - General disapproval of Americans abroad in some countries - Likelihood the government would intervene on your behalf. Brittney Griner / Travis King. The Trump government does not seem as capable at governing. The Democrats seem to be be better at governing and favor bureaucracy more, whether this is true or perceived, I will not claim to know. The government itself is not funded/shut down currently which may impact embassies and clerical services. There does seem to be a general dislike of America and frustration building in many populations and presumably governments. The standing of America has greatly fallen in the world. While hostilities seem to be rising, America's ability to project soft and real power seem to be falling. This can impact some of the points above. I am sure there are other points I have missed and factors I have overlooked. I would say that the general perception of the "strength" of a passport has fallen.

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palmotea 1y ago

> Prof. Peter J. Spiro of Temple University Law School in Philadelphia says while US citizenship remains a valuable status, it’s no longer good enough as a standalone. “In coming years, more Americans will be acquiring additional citizenships in whatever way they can. Multiple citizenship is being normalized in American society. While it may be a bit of an exaggeration, as one social media poster recently put it, “dual citizenship is the new American dream”. What nonsense is this? It's really frickin' hard for a normal person to acquire additional citizenships, and I think the easy "citizenship by decent" options that some Americans had access to are closing. There's no way the requisite long foreign residencies is becoming "normalized" in American society. Maybe Prof. Peter J. Spiro only hangs out with very rich people who can buy some citizenships through investment, but if he does he should refrain on commenting on what's "normalized" because he needs to touch grass.

decimalenough 1y ago
Normalized != normal. There used to be a bit of a taboo against having multiple citizenships. Now somebody like Travis Kalanick of Uber fame can pick up Saudi (!) citizenship and nobody bats an eye.
- palmotea 1y ago
  > Now somebody like Travis Kalanick of Uber fame can pick up Saudi (!) citizenship and nobody bats an eye. Why the heck would you want one of those as a foreigner? You'd lose consular access if you ever ran afoul of the government there.
  - kragen 1y ago
    I don't know Travis, and I don't want Saudi "citizenship" (a rather dubious term when applied to a polity that is neither a city nor a republic), but I can think of some possible reasons: • Going places that have visa-free travel for Saudis but not for US citizens. • Evading other forms of discrimination against US citizens, for example, difficulty in opening Swiss bank accounts. • Consular help from the Saudi consulate in third countries that are neither the US nor Saudi Arabia. Right now it's Saudi embassies rather than US embassies that murder journalists who criticize the head of state, but that could reverse within Travis's lifetime. • Owning Saudi land and businesses. Many countries have restrictions on land ownership by non-citizens, and Saudi Arabia (one of the world's richest countries in solar resources) is one of them, although it isn't completely prohibited in all cases. Similarly for starting businesses. • Residency options in third countries. Even today, there are probably countries where Saudi citizens can live more easily than US citizens; if I had to guess, I'd guess Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco. Morocco is famous, among other things, for being where Roland Barthes lived in order to have sex with a lot of young boys. I wouldn't venture to suggest that Travis is looking for that, but all three countries also have vast solar resources. • Living in Saudi Arabia itself has its appeals. The Line project is not someplace I'd want to live, even if a significant fraction of it does get built (Arcosanti is more my speed) but it would at least be interesting to see.

CaptainOfCoit 1y ago

> the Henley Passport Index [...] includes 199 different passports and 227 different travel destinations How come there are more destinations than passports?

robert-boehnke 1y ago
Some parts of countries have different travel restrictions than others, for example, Greenland is not part of Schengen.
CollinEMac 1y ago
Puerto Rico, for example, counts as a destination but Puerto Ricans have US passports.
duskwuff 1y ago
The destinations include some territories like Puerto Rico which aren't passport issuers, but which have visa requirements which may differ from their parent country. In practice, this means the index assigns more weight to passports accepted by nations with many island territories - like the United States.
ccppurcell 1y ago
Some destinations don't have passports. But all passport issuing places are in principle visitable.
- eltondegeneres 1y ago
  This is an example of a passport issued by a recognized sovereign entity without any associated territory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Malta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Ma...
ajsnigrutin 1y ago
Just guessing, but could be some colonies with some special travel rules. Eg. some islands somewhere in the middle of nowhere are technically part of eg. France, people living there have french passports, but schengen visas might not be valid to travel there.

bdbdkdksk 1y ago

Given the recent changes to American policy I know people with American passports who are worried they can't even go back into the United States.

JohnFen 1y ago
I do as well.
guerrilla 1y ago
Ever since 9/11 it's been harder for non-whites. That was long before any of this. I won't even bother now. It's not worth my freedom. I was harassed and detained every single time I went back. Always something different, never anything to actually do with who I actually am or anything I actually did or didn't do.
- carabiner 1y ago
  It's been harder for people of middle eastern descent but that's about it. I'm nonwhite and have flown a lot and never had any issues. My friend is arab, hipster girl born in LA, and she always gets selected for screening.
  - dijit 1y ago
    Ok, so.. I don't know how to say this without sounding insensitive, but I'm a pretty traditional looking (albeit perhaps short) British, blue-eyed, white guy. I have seriously never had a positive interaction with the US border force. Wether it's the TSA or another associated organisation (since I've been pestered by people who are not TSA). I've been detained, questioned, randomly selected, given contradictory rules by different people, had things randomly confiscated and even been insulted. I'm not confrontational, and I don't believe I stand out. I have had exactly ONE positive interaction (in 2011) whereby I had accidentally travelled with a pocket knife in my checked luggage and due to the fact I was not allowed to check my luggage on the return journey (due to the train being delayed going into Newark; seriously, I understand why Americans distrust public transport) - I told the TSA agent about it and he was kind regarding it, offering condolences, but obviously destroying the knife. I'm not sure if I'm on some kind of easing program to disincentivise me in particular from visiting the US, but I could easily see that if I was anything other than what I am in terms of race/religion/looks/citizenship: that I would presume that this was the reason. And, for context, I've been to the US on average twice per year in the last 15 years, so this is my experience from around 30 trips, and 60-ish interactions with the international air apparatus. It's a pretty decent country once I'm in though, though I wouldn't want to live there. EDIT: I'm not sure why the parent is being downvoted, his anecdote is the same as mine.

hypeatei 1y ago

Is this really surprising given the trade wars the U.S. has started with every country in the world, threats of invasion against allies, and the general lack of qualifications that current U.S. cabinet members have like Hegseth and RFK?

adventured 1y ago
It has little to do with the trade wars or threats of invasion by Trump. It pertains to a small number of countries that are agitated by lack of reciprocity; and then there's China. China being a nation that is directly supporting Russia's war against Ukraine. The same Russia that is very clearly plotting to attack NATO. Aka the China that the US is fighting a proxy war against in Ukraine. The same China that the US is actively preparing to go to war with over Taiwan if necessary. What exactly am I to expect from that situation?
- deleted 1y ago
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- kragen 1y ago
  Generally all countries are "agitated by" lacks of reciprocity; what's changed is that now they're no longer intimidated by the US. Your analysis of the Ukraine war makes no sense.
TitaRusell 1y ago
Remember when US vice president officially endorsed AfD? I do.

worik 1y ago

Chickens are slowly coming home to roost. The USA could well be heading for autarky. For the sake of USAians I hope not, for the rest of the world it would be good for us, in the way a heart attack can be good for your health.

drstewart 1y ago
Yes, the chickens are coming home because checks notes Papua New Guinea and Myanmar now require visas. I think the US will survive despite that.
- Herring 1y ago
  Reminds me of a speech by Putin (he would know) >"Confident of their unlimited power, empires create unnecessary problems for themselves until they can no longer cope with them ... And the United States is now walking the Soviet Union's path, and its gait is confident and steady." filibuster, gerrymandering, fptp, electoral college, supreme court, electric cars, J6, climate issues, Russia, aging congressmen, inequality, inflation ... each individually is (probably) solvable, but they just keep piling up like tetris.

regnull 1y ago

For the full context, it looks like Henley & Partners is providing services like obtaining second citizenship, so it's in their best interest to highlight the US passport "decline". Further down they say "Americans Lead Global Rush for Second Citizenships", which just happens to be the thing they are selling.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
Henley's index ranks America 12th, with 180 visa-free destinations [1]. The Global Passport Power Rank 2025 ranks America 9th, with 168...MS [2]. Maybe they count destinations differently? [1] https://www.henleyglobal.com/passport-index https://www.henleyglobal.com/passport-index [2] https://www.passportindex.org/byRank.php https://www.passportindex.org/byRank.php
- riffraff 1y ago
  they do, you can see "American Samoa", "Bonaire; St. Eustatius and Saba", "French West Indies" etc in Henley's rank, for example.
- lawlessone 1y ago
  Interesting. Not the exact same but most of countries i've checked in both come out near the same spot.
- yencabulator 1y ago
  Not 9th. Of rank 9. There's 40 countries ranking higher than USA there.
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regnull 1y ago

I wish there was an index where not all countries are weighted equally, but according to their desirability. Multiply each country by some factor which is defined by how many people would list it as their desirable destination. The index where France and Tuvalu are both counted equally makes no sense to me, with all due respect to the latter.

ano-ther 1y ago
It really depends what you desire. For some it's the savoir vivre, for others it may be the lack of an extradition treaty, or the taxes.
- regnull 1y ago
  While the desire itself is subjective, the question "how many people would like to visit the country X out of a million" is objective.
  - qsera 1y ago
    > out of a million The answer could change depending on how you select the million people you are asking this question to.
throw57396 1y ago
“When a metric ceases to match a target, invent a new measure.” with apologies to Goodhart.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  I mean, a major reason the US fell in the ranks is because Brazil has stopped giving the US, Canada, and Australia visa-free access, Vietnam didn't include the US in the list of countries it chose to extend visa-free access to, Venezuela has extended visa-free access to a number of EU and EFTA members, and Papua New Guinea extended visa-free access to a number of nations recently. Also, the UK has begun enforcing the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) on all countries excluding Ireland, which means the UK is no longer visa free. The UK's ranking fell for similar reasons as well. If not having visa-free access to PNG or Venezuela is a metric, it's not a fairly relevant metric, or at least a very lossy metric.

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kylehotchkiss 1y ago

Do these claims account for the fact that if a US citizen applies for a visa to most places, they'll probably get one, as opposed to many developing country passports, where if you apply for a visa, you probably won't?

tamimio 1y ago

This isn’t even the full story, because a lot of Americans when they travel abroad they pretend they are Canadians. https://m.youtube.com/shorts/mJ6L9VFJP4w https://m.youtube.com/shorts/mJ6L9VFJP4w